


My Mass Effect Headcanons

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Headcanon, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:18:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanted to lay out some of my headcanons if anyone is interested. I don't utilize all of them in every story and they may vary by pairing, but it's easier to have a place where they're all lined up rather than to have to explain all of them within the story itself. These are in no particular order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Mass Effect Headcanons

**Turians**  
-Turians purr when they're happy.  
-Turian "subvocals" are more along the lines of involuntary secondary vocalizations which can be heard (you can hear the flanging effect when they speak) but aren't often correctly understood by most other races as the content of them is more emotional than concrete language.  
-Turians mark their bondmates.  
-Turians can retract their talons into a plated sheath over their fingertips. I own a hawk (I'm a falconer) and, trust me, you would NOT want bare talons inside no matter how filed down they are. Even dull talons are still wicked sharp and they have an edge to the inner curve. The retractability of their talons allows them better fine motor control and dexterity.  
-Dextro-amino allergies are incredibly rare (if you can eat mint or caraway seeds, you aren't allergic to dextro-amino proteins) but, as with most food-type allergies, the consequences can be dire if one is allergic. Allergy tests are standard for all first responders and military members as exposure is a definite risk.  
-Palaven is hot. Therefore, rather than sweat, turians are designed to lose rather than retain body heat. That's why they don't like the cold. They need an outside source to help warm them as they've evolved no protections against the cold.  
-Turians speak Palaveni.

-There are more males than females for various reasons that are a combination of natural selection due to Palaven's environment and a militaristic society that favors stronger soldiers.  
-Marriage and bonding are separate things. Marriages are typically arranged where bonding is involuntary. This is separate from my polyandry headcanon. Mating is for life and divorce is unheard of in turian society. Infidelity is rare with bondmates but open marriages are common. Political marriage is for status and comes with a requirement for at least two offspring when possible.  
-Turians are/can be polyandrous. More males than females plus long military assignments off-world plus an enhanced focus on community and family means that more male partners makes raising a family easier. Additionally, turian physiology is raptor-like and species of raptors that tend toward community rather than independence also tend to be polyandrous.  
-Miscarriage/childbed mortality rates are high due to female physiology. Carapace, waist size, thickness of the hide all make for difficulty in expanding to carry a child. Turian babies are born feet-first to accommodate the spurs and crest. Fringe is short and soft on babies and grows as their plating develops.

 

 **Drell**  
-Drell venom is relatively mild and produces synesthesia more commonly than hallucinations unless there is a large amount of exposure.  
-Drell society is largely polyandrous as the hanar rescued more males than females. Thus, the females rarely leave Kahje because there are so few of them already and drell society is matriarchal with the female elders leading family clans. (Occasionally, I apply this to turians as well but it's due to the long tours of duty required by the military and their focus on familial ties.)  
-Drell can have hemipenes.

 **Garrus**  
-Romanced Garrus has been in love with Shepard since ME1 but it was more hero worship than anything because he thought she was out of his league.  
-Romanced Garrus talked to Shepard while she was dead.  
-Palaveni has no word for "love" so Garrus learns to say it in Shepard's language.  
-An unromanced Garrus doesn't hook up with Tali. I play Citadel DLC just before the attack on the Cerberus base and having him go on a date with one woman and then turn around and have an established relationship with Tali doesn't sit right. In addition, he seems unaware of Tali's flirting and his responses seem more friendly than interested.  
-Garrus teaches a romanced, non-infiltrator Shepard to use a sniper rifle in ME1. He's secretly a little bit jealous that she picks it up fairly easily (per the Citadel shooting date, she's good with a sniper rifle regardless of class.) when he had to work so hard at it.  
-Garrus is dominant but struggles with that feeling with Shepard because she's his commanding officer. In ME3, they're equals and he no longer has a problem with it.  
-Garrus adds Shepard's name on the inside of his visor when she dies. No one knows it's there but him.

 **Thane**  
-Thane is in love with Shepard whether or not he's romanced.  
-Thane and Irikah didn't work because Irikah didn't understand and thought she could change him. Thane saw her as a type of perfection he could never truly hope to reach. When he failed at civilian jobs, he failed in front of her and he eventually couldn't handle it. She hated seeing him unhappy, so she let him go back to killing but thought that he would stop when Kolyat was born. Instead, never having been a true child or really knowing his own parents, Kolyat just fed his feelings of inadequacy and he eventually came to believe the hanar were right when they said that he wouldn't find happiness in the life he'd chosen.  
-Thane loves Shepard because she accepts him for exactly who he is whether or not she loves him back.  
-Thane epitomizes the expression, "Still waters run deep." He's only dispassionate to those who don't look beneath the surface. His posture and his language are reserved, but with Shepard he is emotive, expressive, and passionate on many levels from the very beginning.  
-Thane's a dominant.  
-Thane can be deliberately cruel but isn't often.  
-Thane has a sense of humor. It's just dry.  
-While Shepard is in lockup on Earth, Mordin, Chakwas, and Miranda work to find a cure for romanced Thane whether they like him or not because they love Shepard and don't want to see her suffer through losing him and because Shepard has done for them but never asks anything for herself. Mordin also sees it as an intriguing puzzle. Thane is resistant at first because it's experimental and he doesn't want to risk his time with her but agrees to it after passing out on Earth as he knows he's unlikely to see Shepard again if he doesn't. (You can't tell me that Mordin can modify and cure the genophage and Miranda and Cerberus can bring Shepard back from the dead but Kepral's Syndrome is beyond them.)  
-Thane teaches a romanced, non-infiltrator Shepard to use a sniper rifle when she finds the Widow on the Collector ship but makes her start with a Mantis.

 **Kolyat**  
-Kolyat is considered a legal adult in drell society due to the drell's shortened lifespan caused by Kepral's and Kahje's longer solar rotational cycle.  
-Kolyat and Feron become friends and sometimes lovers.  
-Kolyat joins C-Sec.  
-Kolyat is a biotic.

 **Liara/Javik**  
-Liara and Javik fall in love. Javik agrees to leave the final battle only because Liara is on the ship. (I just don't see him abandoning the final run to the beam without a damn good reason if he's well enough to hold the LI up at the end.)  
-Liara gives birth to a half-Prothean child after the war.

 **Saren**  
-Saren is an antihero rather than a villain. He wants to do the right thing for the most people but is misguided due to Sovereign's indoctrination.  
-Saren comes to admire Shepard after Eden Prime and her appearance before the Council. This is why he tries to get her to join him on Virmire.  
-Saren falls in love with Shepard on Virmire. This is why he begins to have doubts about Sovereign.  
-Saren was absolutely right to be angry with Anderson and have him removed from Spectre candidacy. Anderson abandoned the mission to save one person.  
-Saren had his colony marks removed when he became a Spectre to show that his loyalty lay with the galaxy as a whole rather than a single clan.  
-Killing Nihlus haunted Saren. He didn't understand why he'd done it and, while he felt that one could always find a reason to kill someone, being unable to identify his reason meant that it had been murder rather than justified killing. That Nihlus was the only murder he'd ever committed, it made him more determined to save his people and drove him closer to Sovereign.

 **Nihlus**  
-Nihlus and Shepard were together before the shakedown run. That's how he knew of her to put her name forward for Spectre candidacy. His loss was why Shepard either didn't romance anyone in ME1 or rebounded onto Kaidan.  
-Nihlus and Saren were friends in addition to mentor/student.

 **Miscellaneous**  
-Aria and Tevos are bondmates.  
-Nyreen was the recon scout from Garrus' story.  
-Tali wants to steal Garrus from Shepard but is either too good of a friend to follow through or tries and fails because Garrus is so loyal.  
-Grunt views Shepard as his mother. Shepard views him as her child.  
-After the destroy ending, Kolyat finds Shepard in the rubble and Aria guards her hospital room until her crew arrives.  
-Solana Vakarian and Tarquin Victus were dating. Garrus didn't think he was good enough for his sister.  
-Solana is a member of Blackwatch.  
-Feron is an infiltrator. That's how he gets some of his intel.  
-In Saren/FemShep/Nihlus fics, Saren is generally the dominant one while Nihlus is submissive to Shepard.  
-Joker is Earthborn Shepard's brother. He knows but won't tell her because his mom abandoned her before meeting his dad and he doesn't want her to know that she had parents who didn't want her. That's why he's so devoted to her and immediately goes to Cerberus when he finds out she's still alive and why he doesn't usually talk about his family with her. It's also why he refuses to leave her when the Crucible fires and why he always worries about her.  
-Anderson views Shepard as the daughter he and Kahlee could have had if things had been different.  
-Jacob is with Brynn in ME2 whether he's with Shepard or not. 

-The _Normandy SR-2_ is flagged as a Cerberus vessel but registered to Shepard as it's one of the "strings" attached by the Illusive Man. ("That why they...took away _my_ ship?") Anderson insists on having it given to him when the Alliance takes it from her because he knows she'll need it when she gets released. That's why her things are still there even after the retrofits. After the war, the Council insists that she be allowed to keep the ship as Spectres need their own vessels.

 **My Shepard**  
-Shepard sings and/or plays the violin.  
-Shepard is a paragade. She believes in getting the job done no matter the cost but while the Commander makes the calls, the woman has to live with the consequences. She pulls a Scarlett O'Hara and tells herself she'll think about it tomorrow. Once the war is over, she has to face all of the things she put off.  
-Shepard gets drunk at Purgatory if Thane dies whether he's romanced or not.  
-Colonist Shepard was rescued by Hackett and/or Anderson and raised by Anderson.  
-Earthborn Shepard is from Chicago. (I don't know why. That's just the place that's always been in my head. I'm not even from Chicago.)  
-Spacer Shepard has a difficult relationship with her mom because Hannah opposed her relationship with Nihlus (or with Hackett if it's his fic).  
-Shepard was either on Elysium _and_ Torfan or just on Akuze.  
-My Shepard has dark hair and eyes as that's the norm and she's just an average person who happens to be extremely good at being a soldier and has had an impossible task thrust upon her. I generally don't mention this in the story as I find that it pulls me out of my immersion to have Shepard described in a story, but in case you were wondering.  
-Shepard is a control freak. She doesn't do drugs at all and doesn't drink enough to get drunk except on very rare occasions because she fears losing control of herself to something like that.  
-Shepard is a submissive _if_ she trusts her partner enough to give him that control. She's in charge of everything else. She needs a safe place where she can let go.  
-Shepard likes old Earth music. She thinks modern music is just a cacophony of sound set to a hard beat. However, she indulges Garrus' music because he's so attached to it.  
-Shepard always chooses destroy. MEHEM ending where the geth and EDI live. The geth and EDI are synthetics. Therefore, they are code. Even if their hardware is destroyed, the code can't be. There just have to be copies of it somewhere.  
-Single Shepard has a crush on Hackett. Hackett returns it but thinks he's too old for her. He has her report directly to him in ME3 because he wants to keep tabs on her and reassure himself she's safe. Withdrawing the fleet to safety when the Crucible fires and leaving her behind is the hardest decision he ever makes.  
-A Shepard who romances Garrus is insecure about Nyreen. She feels that Nyreen is the female Garrus and is afraid that he would be better matched with her. Shepard who doesn't romance Garrus wishes she could have introduced them and set them up.

 **Personal pet peeves/things you won't see in my stories**  
-Immaturity. Shepard is in her 30s, an officer, and a decorated war veteran. She wouldn't act like a child. You aren't going to see a decorated officer flipping off her superiors or storming out of a briefing because her feelings are hurt.  
-Command presence =/= bitchiness even in a renegade. Unnecessary bitchiness for the sake of making her look tougher is just a personal pet peeve of mine. I see this a lot in FemShep stories. I've served in the military and have had some hardass, bad ass female superiors, including one SERE instructor who could make you feel about two inches tall with a look. None of them were bitches. All of them had command presence.  
-Addictions. As much as I appreciate attempts to address alcohol/drug addiction, the truth of the matter is that a soldier who succumbs to addiction is not fit to lead and gets people killed.


End file.
